The Battle for New Hampshire

"The national media has kinda put the Iraq war aside," he said at the New Hampshire State Democratic Party Dinner. (For the record, he’d like to have the troops home in a year.)

By the time he was wrapping up, railing about how the primary should be settled by the voters, not by the "national media," hundreds of Obama supporters had begun gathering near the stage, chanting and yelling. MORE …

There is a strain of conventional wisdom that holds that Barack Obama’s resounding win in Iowa is bad news for John McCain.

The reason: McCain and Obama both enjoy strong support among New Hampshire’s crucial bloc of independent voters. And with Obama ascendant after his resounding Iowa win, independents are now more likely to participate in the Democratic primary, potentially depriving McCain of thousands of votes that would otherwise be his. MORE …

Terry McAuliffe, one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest fund-raisers and the former chair of the D.N.C., just repeated his belief, and the campaign’s new talking point, that the nominating process will be decided on Feb. 5.

“I think this thing will finally be over on Feb 5,” he said on a conference call, referring to Super Duper Tuesday. “One huge advantage we have at the Clinton campaign is that from day one we were going to run a national campaign.”

Here’s how McAuliffe argued that same point on the Clinton plane last night. MORE …

Hillary Clinton didn’t waste any time trying to bring Barack Obama back down to
earth after his convincing victory in Iowa’s caucus yesterday.

In her first New Hampshire campaign in a Nashua hangar, Clinton called on the voters to vet her opponents’ records and judge whether they are really ready to be president.

“There has been a lot static in the air and a lot of unanswered questions about all of us as candidates,” she said. “I want to know from all of you, those who are supporting me, those who are undecided and those who at this moment and time think they are supporting another candidate, what do you want to know about us.” MORE …

Given the rarity of Hillary Clinton giving a formal press conference, it seems worth posting a full transcript of her comments from earlier today at the Gala café in Manchester. Highlights include: her essentially calling Iowa an undemocratic backwater that discriminates against potential Hillary voters; her suggesting that reporters take a closer, more skeptical look at Barack Obama. MORE …

This morning’s edition of the Union Leader contains a reminder of why the endorsement of New Hampshire’s largest (and most conservative) newspaper is so coveted by Republicans: Two separate editorials (technically, one is a note from publisher Joseph McQuaid) touting McCain and disparaging Mitt Romney, his chief rival in the state. MORE …

Mike Lockable may have the Chuck Norris voter all locked up—but Madeleine Stowe is continuing her Iowa push for John Edwards here in New Hampshire. I talked to the actress (Twelve Monkies! Last of the Mohicans!MORE …

I caught up with the tall red-haired Elizabeth Kucinich this morning downtown Manchester. "It was very interesting last night," she said of the New Hampshire Democratic dinner, at which her husband Dennis spoke. "So you saw: standing ovation, whooping, cheering…. Lots of people came up, saying we love you, you’re right about everything. And then I see them wearing pins for other candidates. And I said, not being a shy, retiring wife, ‘Maybe we can exchange your pin for a Kucinich pin?’"

The obstacle to the Kucinich campaign, as she sees it, is the obsession with "electability."MORE …